Bentley's CEO Says 6.75L Twin-Turbo V8 In Mulsanne Will Be its “Final Home”

The 6.75L V8 found in the Bentley Mulsanne will be heading out

Very few engines have a long history of powering various vehicles - the small-block Chevrolet V8 and the Buick 3.5L V8 that would be used in a number of British vehicles. Another one can be found under the hood of the Bentley Mulsanne, the 6.75L (6 and 3/4 in Bentley parlance) twin-turbo V8 can trace its roots back to 1959. But the final curtain call for this engine is coming.

Bentley CEO Wolfgang Dürheimer told Car and Driver that the V8 has found its “final home” in the Mulsanne. The next-generation Bentley flagship would switch to a 12-Cylinder (most likely a W12 one). Keep in mind this isn't likely going to happen until the next decade as the Mulsanne recently underwent a refresh.

This isn't the first time the V8 - known as the L-Series - has been shown the door. Back when BMW owned Bentley in the mid-nineties, the automaker dropped the L-Series V8 and replaced it with one of their own with the new Arnage. Volkswagen would snap Bentley up in 1998 and would bring back the L-Series for the Arnage in the Red Label. The BMW V8 would stick around in the Arnage Green Label. However due to poor sales of the Green Label, Bentley dropped it - engine and all.

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The end of an era, but time catches up with everyone or everything in this case. This engine had a phenomenal run, and it makes sense to go to the W12 and newer V8s that can produce less emissions and similar power. The six and three quarter liter V8 will always be a legend.

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I question if Bentley can continue to build an auto with a V8 or even a W12 down the road in the era of strict emissions and no other options for offsetting the poor mpg.

I still think we are in the final years of big turbo V8 and 12s if a car company does not have other EV or hybrids that off set the poor mpg and emissions. Plus Tesla has proven to the world you can have luxury in a pure EV package.

Bentley should go pure EV or just become a page in the history books.

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Bentley will not go into the history books, maybe they'll make an EV or hybrid, maybe not. But VW has enough cars to offset Bentley's guzzlers. And even then a Bentley Continental V8 gets 2 mpg better than a Chevy Silverado 5.3 liter V8. Does anyone think the Silverado will go into the history books because of emissions and fuel economy standards?

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Bentley will not go into the history books, maybe they'll make an EV or hybrid, maybe not. But VW has enough cars to offset Bentley's guzzlers. And even then a Bentley Continental V8 gets 2 mpg better than a Chevy Silverado 5.3 liter V8. Does anyone think the Silverado will go into the history books because of emissions and fuel economy standards?

The world needs work trucks, the world DOES NOT NEED Bentley.

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The world may not NEED Bentley, but the world has people that will pay massive money for a Bentley, and with $25,000 per car margins, Bentley isn't going anywhere. There will be a 4-cylinder Silverado before Bentley stops making a 12 cylinder engine. Heck, Bugatti makes a 16-cylinder engine and might be adding a 2nd model!

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Bentley will not go into the history books, maybe they'll make an EV or hybrid, maybe not. But VW has enough cars to offset Bentley's guzzlers. And even then a Bentley Continental V8 gets 2 mpg better than a Chevy Silverado 5.3 liter V8. Does anyone think the Silverado will go into the history books because of emissions and fuel economy standards?

That's actually a very good point considering the wheelbases are probably similar with how freakin huge Bentlys are meaning a similar CAFE score. But a more modern engine will definitely produce less overall emissions and be cleaner.
Edited May 28, 2016 by ccap41

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The Bentley DOHC V8 even in that 5000+ lb car gets 15/25 mpg. That isn't too bad given the power output and weight. The W12 is like 12/20 (still better than the 6.75 liter V8), but they could add in a hybrid system to add a few mpg to either engine. CAFE has a weird scoring system, size of the vehicle shouldn't matter, fuel economy should. But a Mulsanne is huge, it has a 129 inch wheelbase, 220 inch overall length.

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The Bentley DOHC V8 even in that 5000+ lb car gets 15/25 mpg. That isn't too bad given the power output and weight. The W12 is like 12/20 (still better than the 6.75 liter V8), but they could add in a hybrid system to add a few mpg to either engine. CAFE has a weird scoring system, size of the vehicle shouldn't matter, fuel economy should. But a Mulsanne is huge, it has a 129 inch wheelbase, 220 inch overall length.

The footprint of the vehicle does matter though. That's one reason trucks continue to get larger is because as they get bigger and fuel economy stays roughly the same(with the larger engines, not the engines made for fuel economy(2.7 and 3.0 diesel) ) they aren't an issue. It's a ratio basically.

"First, like the current 2012–16 rules, these new standards are size based. That means there’s a formula to calculate the required CAFE—within limits—for each car based on its “footprint,” which is the product of its wheelbase and track dimensions. In 2011, for example, the required CAFE mpg for the smallest car would not exceed 31.2, while even the largest car was assigned at least 24 mpg. For 2025, these car limits go up to 61.1 and 45.6. Truck mpg is calculated in similar fashion using a different formula. For 2011, the truck mpg ranged from 21.1 to 27.1. In the 2025 proposal, it spans 30.2 to 50.4 mpg. Notice that the formula has been adjusted so that the low end of the range rises less than the high end to help accommodate large trucks.

Second, because these CAFE requirements are based on size, every car company actually ends up with a different CAFE requirement, depending on the mix and size of cars and trucks that it actually sells. For every model year, each company must calculate the CAFE requirement for all models it markets and then determine the sales-weighted average for its actual mix. Therefore, a company such as General Motors, with its heavy share of large pickups and SUVs, will have a lower CAFE requirement than Suzuki, which primarily produces smallish cars and SUVs."

"Here’s how it works. A 2010 Honda Accord has a wheelbase of 110.2 inches and a track of 62.6 inches. Multiplying those two figures yields a footprint of 47.9 square feet. If you plug that figure into the government’s formula, you get a target mpg of 35.9 for 2016. The smaller its footprint, the higher the fuel economy a given vehicle has to meet. A current Ford Focus would have to achieve 40.8 by 2016, while a Mercedes S-class will have a bogey of 31.8 mpg. The aforementioned 328i will have to hit 38.2 mpg."

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That is why CAFE is pointless to begin with. It courages car companies to make bigger, thus thirstier cars. The only way it would work is to set an MPG target, and the entire company portfolio regardless of vehicle footprint would have to average out to that number.

A better option to CAFE is to do a gas guzzler tax and energy efficient credit system. Suppose you had a number like 35 mpg combined EPA for 2016, and you could adjust it up as years go by, raise it 1 mpg every 2 years or something and get to 40 mpg EPA combined in 2025. So from the 35 mpg baseline, for every 1 mpg worse than that a car gets, there is a $100 gas guzzler tax. Thus if a vehicle gets 20 mpg combined EPA, that is -15 mpg times $100 dollars = a $1,500 gas guzzler tax. A vehicle at 25 mpg would have a $1,000 gas guzzler tax, and so on.

Then on the flip side there would be a credit for being above the baseline. So a car with 40 mpg combined EPA would have a $500 credit that the government would pay toward the buyer at time of purchase out of the gas guzzler tax pool, and there would be a maximum credit of $2,500, all pure EV cars would get the $2,500 credit.

Since we know Americans will always buy crossovers, trucks, gas guzzlers, etc, you never have to worry about the gas guzzler tax pool running too low to feed the fuel efficiency credit pool. The excess every year can be used to fix roads and bridges.

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